Freshman year dilemma

Well its kind of late to post this thread right now but I had a dilemma at the beginning of the school year. I moved to the town I live in a little after spring break last school year (2016-17) when I was in eight grade, and it didn’t take me long to get adjusted to the new school. However, quite unexpectedly my parents decided we were going to a foreign country for vacation over summer break and the only return flight was the first week after school started :frowning: I couldn’t do anything about it of course, but at the time I didn’t think much of it. Who cares if I miss the first week of school? Later I realized that this was a deadly mistake for my freshman GPA. So the problem is, I didn’t know that freshmen at my high school were able to take algebra 2, and I was in algebra 1 in 8th grade so I thought the normal progression was algebra 1 to geometry then to algebra 2. I was soon proved to be wrong, because apparently lots of kids double-blocked math so they were doing geometry and algebra 2 at the same time. Before I came to know this, however, I had a problem with my schedule on the second week of freshman year. My counselor had accidentally put me in a engineering class and I wanted to resolve that, so my second day of school (really it was the 2nd week of school starting) I went to my counselor and submitted a schedule change request form. I could’ve changed to Algbera 2 then but I didn’t know it was offered, and now I feel at a disadvantage because everybody in my classes is going to be in pre-calculus next year while I will be in Algebra 2.

Will this hurt my chances of getting into good colleges or put me at a less competitive spot because I could’ve been in AP Calculus BC by 11th grade? Please respond or add your comment. Thanks for reading.

What’s done is done, and you probably shouldn’t be worried. Compared to students outside your school you really aren’t behind in math at all - at my school the average track is to take geometry as a freshman and alg2 as a sophomore, and at a lot of other schools most kids are taking alg1 as freshmen. As long as you have calculus by the time you graduate (which you will on your current track) and keep A’s in all your math courses, I really don’t think it will make or break a college acceptance.

If you’re considering it, I really wouldn’t advise taking alg2 online unless you have outside help and are amazing at math - it’s cumulative and if the online course doesn’t teach the same thing or in the same depth as your school course then you could be in trouble the year after when you’re expected to know things you weren’t taught. You’re doing fine; there are plenty of other ways to make yourself stand out than one advanced math course.

@chrysalism thanks for the advice! I was considering doing alg2 in the summer at SMI, but I changed my mind later because I was going to a science camp. Thanks again for replying :slight_smile: